UWM foundry lab members stand out at AFS conference

Congratulations to doctoral student Swaroop Kumar Behera who received the George J. Barker Memorial Scholarship at the annual American Foundry Society, Wisconsin Chapter Regional Conference, on Feb 8. in Milwaukee. The scholarship, awarded annually, supports graduate-level education beneficial to the cast metal industry, particularly within the membership areas for the American Foundry Society chapters in Wisconsin.

Behera teaches the Engineering Materials lab, which is a prerequisite for all engineering students, and has managed the UWM Foundry since Fall of 2021. His dissertation is focused on exploring the effect of micro-structure on wetting and corrosion behaviors of various alloy systems.

UWM students from the Foundry Lab also showcased their work in the Casting Competition at the conference. The students made piston heads using a new high-temperature aluminum alloy and an investment casting method. They also volunteered at the “Foundry in a Box” demonstration hosted by the AFS WI Chapter and REGS Sheeler at the conference, helping numerous conference participants, both students and industry personnel, make personalized tin castings.

Amano, Al Hamad and Shaker talk wind energy with Spectrum News

three men in wind tunnel lab

Ryo Amano, professor, mechanical engineering, and his lab members, Saif Al Hamad and Omar Shaker, recently showed a reporter how they use the wind tunnel at the USR building to conduct research into wind energy efficiency.

Wind energy is one of the cleanest energies, making it a key part of U.S. efforts to reduce carbon emissions, said Amano, director of the UWM Industrial Assessment Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The wind tunnel, built in 2009, is the largest one in Wisconsin, allowing researchers to investigate ways to harness as much power as possible from wind turbines. Watch

Campus safety training available for instructional staff

A campus safety presentation aimed at training instructors to address students in crisis and handle classroom disruptions that could lead to a violent incident is again offered this semester. Training will also discuss online and virtual disruptions to include threats.

This presentation will help ensure that instructors are prepared to respond to situations that could cause the UWM community to feel unsafe.

About 1,200 faculty and instructional staff already have received this valuable information, co-developed by the Dean of Students Office and the UWM Police Department. If you have not attended a training session (or if you missed the session), please make it a priority this semester.

There are seven sessions offered in-person and virtually from this month through May 2024. The training lasts about 90 minutes. View the dates/times and register here. For other questions, please email safety-training@uwm.edu.

Researcher talks about Large Language Models Feb. 22 at 11 a.m.

Biomedical natural language processing (NLP) aims to make it easier to extract important information from unstructured texts like electronic health records, biomedical journal articles and regulatory documents, and to use this information to improve our lives.

Tim Miller will describe recent work from his Machine Learning for Medical Language Lab at 11 a.m. today in EMS E20. His talk will connect the field of biomedical NLP with the emergence of a powerful class of models known as large language models (LLMs).

He will address questions like: How important is dataset creation? Will NLP experts and subject matter experts need each other anymore? Will LLMs still suffer from out-of-domain performance loss as supervised models?

Miller is an associate professor in the Computational Health Informatics Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science. His research focuses on domain adaptation/generalizability of ML-based NLP methods, and learning patient representations.

UWM alum and Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella marks ten years since taking the lead at the world’s largest company

Satya Nadella earned his masters in computer science from UWM College of Engineering & Applied Science. He is in this photo with Dean Brett Peters

It’s been a great decade for Satya Nadella (’90 MS Computer Science), who took over as CEO of Microsoft Corp. on Feb. 4, 2014. Since then, he’s led the company to its present pinnacle of success, with the company now valued at $3 trillion.

A few of his recent accolades in the last year include:

  • Microsoft made TIME’s list of most influential companies of the year, highlighting the company’s heavy investments in AI. (Nadella was listed on the TIME 100 list of most influence people in 2018.) 
  • CNN Business chose Nadella as its CEO of the Year, beating out other high-profile businesspeople. The reason, according to the CNN judging panel, was that Nadella was the first to commercialize and add AI tools like ChatGPT into its product line, influencing the commercial direction of AI.
  • The Georgia Institute of Technology presented Nadella with an honorary doctoral degree.

The company’s rise has coincided with its support for STEM education and automation research at UWM with the College of Engineering & Applied Science as the main recipient.

“Microsoft’s support of UWM has revolved around some of the same priorities that fueled the company’s business in the last decade,” said Brett Peters, dean of UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science. “For instance, Microsoft donated credits of its leading Cloud processing software service, Azure, to UWM’s Connected Systems Institute. And Satya and his wife Anu have expanded that to also focus on workforce development and diversity, with their generous support of our local students.”

Support for UWM research

Microsoft has been a key partner in UWM’s Connected Systems Institute (CSI), a statewide research hub that brings together academia, industry and government to solve real-world problems using the industrial internet of things.

In 2019, Microsoft gave UWM more than $1.5 million in cash, Microsoft Azure cloud computing credits and Surface Hub devices to advance CSI.

Microsoft followed that up recently, in January 2024, with a second donation of $1.2 million to CSI. The gift will be used to educate Wisconsin’s talent pipeline for Industry 4.0 manufacturing, which allows small and medium manufacturers to integrate new technologies, such as the internet of things, AI and smart robotics, into their production processes. 

“CSI, with the help of Microsoft, has moved rapidly into the AI space with the hopes of providing tangible technology solutions to manufacturers,” said Microsoft Chief AI Officer Balamurugan Balakreshnan. “For example, CSI recently completed research on an AI vision system and deployed at CSI an AI chatbot that assists manufacturers on the shop floor in accessing information quickly.”

Shamar Webster (’23 MS Computer Science) worked with Balakreshnan in creating the factory chatbox last fall in his final semester before graduation.

Scholarships for students from underserved communities

In 2021, Nadella and wife Anu Nadella also donated $2 million to support scholarships for undergraduate students from marginalized and underserved communities, preparing them with the skills to pursue careers in computer science, data science and information technology. The gift also funds expanded student services, such as advising, mentoring and tutoring, as well as emergency grant support to help these students remain successful in pursuing their degrees.

Finally, the gift supports pre-college programming to encourage students from marginalized and underserved communities to enroll in these STEM fields. 

The College of Engineering & Applied Science welcomed the first and second cohorts of scholarship winners with full-ride scholarships in Fall 2022 and 2023, respectively.

In 2018, Nadella made a $250,000 contribution to an endowed scholarship fund set up in emeritus professor K. Vairavan’s name. Many computer science, electrical and computer engineering students have benefited annually from this fund.

Nadella grew up in the southern India and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Mangalore University. He moved to the U.S. to study at UWM. In 2013, he received the UWM Chancellor’s Innovation Award for his leadership of Microsoft’s Server & Tools Division, a year before being named as CEO of Microsoft. In 2021, “Chairman” was added to his title.

Niu honored by STEM Forward on Feb. 13

Congratulations to Junjie Niu, Richard & Joanne Grigg fellow and associate professor, materials science and engineering, who was feted on Feb. 13 at an awards banquet hosted by STEM Forward. The Milwaukee-based non-profit organization that inspires youth to pursue STEM careers had named Niu its Engineer of the Year. Niu was recognized for his contributions to the profession and his service as a role model.

Attending the banquet to honor Niu were Dean Brett Peters; Andy Graettinger; associate dean for research; Prasenjit Guptasarma, associate dean for academic affairs; Phyllis King, UWM associate vice chancellor for academic affairs; Jessica Silvaggi, president of the UWM Research Foundation; Rebecca Tallon, engineering director of water treatment technology at A.O. Smith; and Ryan Jipp, vice president of battery systems at Milwaukee Tool.

Niu (left) with Rich Merkel, executive director of STEM Forward

Milwaukee Engineer Valentines who tied the knot

man proposing to woman

Students come to college for their degree but leave with more than that. With so many people to meet in college, it’s not surprising that many lifelong relationships are formed. And, for some, that included finding “the one.” In honor of Valentine’s Day, we present four stories of couples who found true love at the College of Engineering & Applied Science and started their lives together.

Lianna Hawi and Silas Petrie

Lianna Hawi met Silas Petrie in the fall of 2014 and the couple went on their first date to the Milwaukee Art Museum. Four years later, the museum was the site where Silas proposed.

Both majored in mechanical engineering, with Lianna finishing her degree in December of 2017 and Silas in May of 2018. The wedding was in August 2019. Today, they live in South Milwaukee and navigate busy careers: Silas is a patent engineer at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP and Lianna is a project manager at Rockwell Automation.

Ryan and Dora Stelse

Dora (Richardson) and Ryan Stelse

The Stelses found true love in a familiar spot in the EMS building.

“Our love story began in April 2019 when we met in the computer lab,” said Dora (’20 BS, Industrial Engineering). From that moment, she and future hubby Ryan (’20 BS, Mechanical Engineering) spent countless hours working on homework side by side in the third-floor computer lab.

In January of 2021, the pair wore their UWM gear for their engagement photo shoot. Fast forward to now, the couple is expecting a baby boy in May.

David and Megan Leckman

David and Megan (Dittman) Leckman

The Leckmans met in the fall of 2003 when David was in the mechanical engineering graduate program and Megan was finishing her undergraduate degree in art. David’s research office was just down the hall from the college’s advising office, where Megan was a student worker, and she caught his eye.

They got married in November 2005 and today have three amazing kids and live in Naperville, Illinois. “We’ve built a wonderful life together and it all started in the College of Engineering & Applied Science,” said Megan.

Kristy and Andy Graettinger in the ’90s

Andy and Kristy (Maas) Graettinger

They met in an engineering study group in the Spring of 1991. Kristy was impressed with how Andy could explain the engineering topics. Andy was impressed at how Kristy consistently scored better than him on exams. 

Following graduation in 1994, they were married in 1995 and both went on to receive graduate degrees at Northwestern University. After seven years as a practicing engineer, Kristy changed careers and is now a physician at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Andy returned to his alma mater and is the Associate Dean for Research in the college.

Did you meet your partner at the College of Engineering & Applied Science? Share your story with us at ceas-marketing@uwm.edu!

NMDSI awards research funding to four college faculty and two students

Four faculty members and two graduate students from the college have won a share of $575,000 funding from the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute for research projects ranging from voice-activated robotic manipulation to an early warning system that helps college students succeed.

The goal of the funded work is to accelerate research and create talent and community partnerships around data science. Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) is a partnership among Northwestern Mutual, UWM and Marquette University and with a mission of establishing Wisconsin as a recognized national hub for data science and technology.

Funding was awarded to the college in two categories – the Paving ROADS Seed Fund Program and the Student Research Scholars Program.

The Paving ROADS Seed Fund Program supports new research partnerships to forge short- and long-term engagement among NMDSI affiliated faculty and data science experts across disciplines. The program also seeks to use data science for social and societal impact in Milwaukee and beyond.Funded from the college are:

  • Jun Zhang,professor, electrical engineering and computer science

Zhang will develop machine learning algorithms and software that can provide automated early prediction of UWM students’ course outcomes and identify ways they can improve their performance. The overall goal is to boost student retention and on-time graduation rates.

  • Mohammad Habib Rahman, associate professor, mechanical engineering, and Susan McRoy, professor, computer science  

Harnessing generative artificial intelligence and voice-activated technology, this project will revolutionize robotic devices that are designed for upper limb rehabilitation, allowing users to communicate with the robot by speaking. Inga Wang, UWM associate professor, occupational therapy, and Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed, Marquette University professor, computer science, are also on the research team.

  • Tian Zhao, associate professor, computer science

This project will focus on developing a distributed machine-learning system for educational research, where student data used for training the individual machine-learning models is privacy-protected because it is not transmitted to a central server.

The intent of the Student Research Scholars Programis to engage UWM and Marquette students in data science research, working with affiliated faculty and data science experts in and across disciplines to give them a hands-on experience. Funded projects include:

  • Md Tanzil Shahria, computer science

Shahria will design a vision-based assistive robot control system that allows people with disabilities who use them to identify and locate objects, navigate the assistive robotic gripper to them, and perform pick-and-place tasks semi-autonomously rather than manually manipulating the robot. Using a depth camera to “see” the surroundings and a mapping function, he will create a deep learning-based model to detect and interact with objects.

  • Raisa Nkweteyim, biomedical and health informatics 

Other than cost, little is known about social factors and personal perceptions that hinder people from accessing health care. In this study, Nkweteyim will investigate patient characteristics associated with the unwillingness to access health care and perform statistical tests to confirm which characteristics are truly contributors.

Remembering Tarun Naik

Tarun Naik, professor emeritus, civil and environmental engineering, passed away on Jan. 29, 2024 at his home in Wauwatosa.

His area of expertise was in recycling of industrial waste materials into products, especially concrete.

As founder and director of the Center for By-Products Utilization in the College of Engineering & Applied Science, he worked with partners, such as We Energies, to make power-plant fly ash available to industry for concrete production. Naik’s research helped to demonstrate how fly ash could be used in place of cement to drastically cut the greenhouse gas emissions.

“Professor Naik was a hands-on researcher who worked at the ready mixed concrete companies, precast plants, foundries, paper mills and more to find the best way to match their by-products to improve products or even create new products,” said Bruce Ramme, adjunct professor. “There were hundreds of UWM students involved in the research and thousands of technical papers inspired by Professor Naik’s leadership and work.”

Naik was Ramme’s thesis adviser in 1980 when Ramme was completing his master’s degree at UWM.  

Born India, Naik completed his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering before immigrating to the U.S. He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees at the UW-Madison and joined the UWM faculty in the 1970s. He retired in 2012.

Visitation and gathering will be held on Monday, Feb. 5, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Schmidt & Bartelt Funeral Home, 10121 W. North Avenue, Wauwatosa.

Dabagh lands $542,000 NSF Early CAREER Award for modeling virtual tumor tissues

women standing in front with several people in background

Cancerous tumors don’t happen in a vacuum. They develop in a cellular soup that can contribute to the disease’s progression.

Mahsa Dabagh, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, knows this first-hand. Her specialty is computational modeling of how cells and organelles inside of cells sense and respond to changes in their surroundings.

Instead of relying on animal models to probe the micro-environment of cancer, Dabagh is building a virtual model of a real human tumor, using data that characterizes the tissue on a molecular level. Tracking cellular changes of the tissue would provide the biomarkers that could reveal the stage of the cancer – or even predict if the tissue in question is likely to turn malignant or metastasize, she said.

The research is funded by a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award just announced by the National Science Foundation. Dabagh will use the five-year $542,000 grant to construct the model and apply it to a prevalent type of pancreatic tumor, known as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Patients with pancreatic cancer often don’t have physical symptoms, like pain, until the disease in its late stages or has spread to other places in the body.  

“If we understand the cellular mechanisms of malignancy, and we track those, then we are in good place for prevention and treatment,” Dabagh said. “I believe this model will be very helpful in increasing earlier and more accurate cancer diagnoses.”

CAREER awards are the NSF’s most prestigious grants for early career researchers. They support the professional development of teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of this century.

For this project, she will take a comparative approach, modeling healthy tissue and diseased tissue to find the differences.  

“Cancer cells move around to find the best place to grow,” Dabagh said. “Once we have a view of the changing composition, then we work backwards to find the biomarkers.”

Using atomic force microscopy to measure molecular forces in 3D, Dabagh and her lab members will determine biomechanical properties of different tissues and then feed that into the computational model. With cancer, for example, different levels of tissue stiffness signal malignancy or progressive malignancy, she said.

“We would also look for a vascular network starting to form around the tissue because blood vessels are needed for cancer to grow,” she said. 

Another feature the team will track is the level of collagen fiber, a common fibrous protein in the body that provides structure to tissues. With pancreatic cancer, collagen fiber builds up, forming a thick layer of scar tissue around the tumor and blocking drugs from reaching the cancer cells.

A unique aspect of the model is that it can be personalized for individual patients by using their particular biological data.

Because the model will replicate the complexity and heterogeneity of an actual human tumor, it could also be modified to use in revealing the progression of other diseases, such as atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases, healing of chronic wounds and the spread of viruses. It also has promise as a platform to safely evaluate new drugs and treatments.